Day two of the bachin' experience. It has been great to spend the last two days with my brother Darrel Croswell from Arkansas while he had a weekend between business concerns. Darrel knows much about the path and journey I am on. His bride is "free" from cancer after battling breast cancer many years ago. Darrel and I went to worship this morning, and a wonderful message from John 21 about restoration in Christ.
Cynth and Aaron are well on their way back, having left Rachael and Tuscaloosa about four hours ago (around 7:30pm). They will stop for the night and continue tomorrow morning hopefully to be back here before it is late. Cynth told me she drove all of yesterday. Surely she must be joking, for when we've been on a trip together she usually cannot drive for more than a couple of hours. Maybe this was different because it was just her and Aaron, who was available to drive, but they also didn't stop that often between here and Newnan, GA, their destination last night.
As for me, I continue in some pain, though the pain meds are helping, as is the Lidocaine patch. The doctors do know about the continuing pain and this week we'll no doubt discuss what to do more, probably for pain management as well as for treatment options going forward. It is odd, to be the one who wants to have all the answers, to often be expected to have the answers, but to have none, really. All I do know is while there is a lot of what may seem like guesswork from the doctors, they are using all available means at their disposal, and God is at work on my behalf.
God is at work, so we trust that he will be glorified when this period passes to reveal the next hurdle. Our prayer is to that end: that God is magnified by my trials, that my faith in him is perfected and that I am faithful to the calling he has given to me. Realizing that this is not just my affliction, the prayer includes a petition for strength to persevere for Cynth, peace and strength for Aaron, over these next few weeks. For Rachael, I pray that God touches her to soften her, and that she is brought to the cross for her comfort and peace.
We can't see one hour from now, so we surely cannot see beyond that to know what tomorrow may bring. But we know the one who does, and we can pray for his abiding presence to sustain us in whatever may come. God, who did not withhold his own son from us, but accepted his death on the cross as the payment for our sin, is pleased to forgive us our sin, even as he knows that we find our delight in so many other things besides him. He is further delighted to call us his child, adopted through the blood of Christ, clothed in his righteousness, and destined for a place at his table in eternity. Thanks be unto God for his redeeming love.
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